


come home

by chcrrvs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chcrrvs/pseuds/chcrrvs
Summary: peter doesn't handle loss well.





	come home

**Author's Note:**

> while reading, listen to the rainy evening ep by idealism

It was Sunday night, and Peter had worked himself half to death the entire weekend. He had been using his time as Spiderman as a distraction- don’t think about Tony. Sometimes, it worked. He’d feel the adrenaline of swinging from rooftop to rooftop, he’d feel the rush of endorphins as he saved another innocent person and the police would show up and they’d talk and he was okay. He was alright, he could do this. So every night, all his free time, he took to the rooftops. It helped him get away.

  
He had stopped doing his homework, and his teachers were threatening to call his Aunt at this point. She never really knew when he was home, she worked even more than he did. Tony had left the two of them a large sum of money, but Aunt May just put it in the bank. “For college,” she’d say, a sad look in her eye. Peter didn’t like to think about that. So he’d do some of his homework at the end of the night, after saving a cat from a tree and stopping a mugging. He’d do just enough to get him by without getting in trouble. The homework was mindless and lent itself to his mind wandering, which was what Peter was so desperately avoiding. Don’t think about Tony.

  
Ned came over less. Rather, Peter was home less, or wouldn’t invite him over. He could see how it was affecting Ned, the sudden distance. Peter just needed to be alone (a lie). He stopped talking to MJ, too- he couldn’t see how that affected her. She was already distant by nature, but… she understood. Her and Ned hung out more, and Peter didn’t talk to anybody.

  
Happy sent a text every morning and night. “Have a good day at school, kiddo” and “Goodnight, sleep well”. He never responded.

  
So, Peter got himself some McDonalds and sat on the fire escape of some building near his apartment and ate his food, listening to music. He usually listened to lo-fi or something else of the sort. This was the only time he let himself think, let his mind wander. It was a brief moment every evening before going home and falling asleep approximately ten minutes before Aunt May got home every night.

  
Peter felt his mind begin to wander again and pulled out his phone to distract himself. He had muted the words Tony Stark and Iron Man on all social media and search engines- don’t think about Tony. He scrolled through messages he hadn’t replied to, intentionally avoiding his texts from Pepper. He couldn’t face her. She had invited him over for dinner, asked him to spend time with Morgan, inquired about how his Spiderman thing is going. She worried about him. He never responded.

  
Tonight, though, was different. Peter Parker felt the ache in his chest, the exhaustion weighing down his limbs, the tingle in the back of his head. He finished his food and slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket, zipping the pocket up, and began swinging. He needed to stop. Stop everything. Stop the pain, stop the thinking, stop the time, stop the world. His wrists took him across town. He didn’t care where, anywhere but his little fire escape on the little building in little Queens in little New York City in little New York. He needed to get out of his little suit and out of this little world. Next thing he knew, he was at the little cabin in the little woods. He landed on the porch, approaching the door. Why was he here? It was 11 at night at the earliest, he should be home. He turned, getting ready to leave and-

  
“Peter?” a soft voice cut through the sounds of the night. It was Pepper. Peter felt his head dip, his shoulders fall forward, his back slope. There was a hand on his shoulder.

  
“Peter…” Don’t think about Tony. Don’t think about Tony. The hand turned him around. He heard a soft inhale. Don’t think about Tony.

  
Another hand reached for his mask and he felt it being lifted from his face. Don’t think about Tony. Pepper sighed.

  
“Peter.” It was almost a whisper. He felt his name fan across his face. The hand holding his mask fell to his other shoulder.

  
“Hey Ms. Potts.” His voice cracked. He felt so weak. He shouldn’t be here. Don’t think about Tony.

  
Peter looked horrible, under the mask. His eyes were in a permanent state of red. The rest of his skin looked a yellowish-green in comparison. His lips were chapped and cracked to bleeding and his upper lip, just beneath his nose, was rubbed raw. His eyes were sunken and the skin beneath was puffy. His face was wet. He was so, so tired. Don’t think about Tony.

  
“Peter.” Pepper’s voice was firm. Her arms went around his neck and they were firm, too. He felt his arms slip around her waist and his nose in the junction between her shoulder and her neck. He felt her hand in his hair, grounding him. She surrounded him, barred him off from the rest of the world. He felt his arms tighten. “Hey,” she whispered gently into his hair. He sniffed in response. “Come in.”

  
The inside of the house was dark, the only light was a lamp by the couch. On the arm of the couch, a book sat upside down, opened to a page near the end. It was worn, well-used. The kitchen looked clean but lived in, as did the rest of the house. A doll sat in the corner next to a little contraption Peter assumed Morgan was working on. Pepper set Peter down on the couch by the book and sat next to him, slightly facing him.

  
“Peter,” she began, staring at her hands in her lap. Only now did he notice what she was wearing. She hadn’t changed out of her work clothes, but they were wrinkled and a little dirty. She would never go out like this. He wondered, vaguely, if she had changed in the past few days. She took her phone out and typed something short before setting it back down on the coffee table.

  
“Peter… you know, Tony-” She stopped, and the room was frozen. Peter felt, distantly, a hand on his knee. A squeeze. “Let’s get you out of that suit.” She said without much thought. She led him around the corner to a bedroom that looked untouched, probably a spare. She pulled a pair of plain pajama pants and a t-shirt out of a drawer and set them beside where Peter had sat on the bed. She said something along the lines of “come out when you’re ready” before softly closing the door behind her. He changed mindlessly. The clothes felt perfectly, as though bought for him. There was a knock on the door and a pause before it opened, revealing Pepper again. Closing it behind her, she set herself next to him where the pile of folded clothes had just been.

  
“Do they fit?” She asked. His head nodded. “Good. Ton-  _we_ picked out some clothes for you, you know. When we built this house, we made this room for you. We picked clothes for you. We never stopped thinking about you.”

  
Peter knew the underlying words.

  
“Peter, I…” She began again, just like on the couch. “Tony loved you, you know. So much.” The room was, again, frozen. She pushed through with incredible heat.

  
“Everything he did… it was for you. You and Morgan were the two most important things in his life. When you were gone, he never stopped thinking about you. He blamed himself, for everything. He kept a photo of you and him in the kitchen. Sometimes, late at night, when I’d come down for a glass of water, I’d catch him staring at it. At you.”

  
He felt the world begin to melt around him. He felt the warmth from Pepper on his arm.

  
“I know he left you and your Aunt May some money. I want you to know that that’s not the only thing he left.” The bed lifted as Pepper stood and moved to the drawers, opening one. She rummaged through some clothing a bit before pulling out a flat device. She handed it to Peter. “It will only open for you. He programmed it that way. Just press the button in the center when you’re ready, alright? Then set it down on the ground in front of you, about three feet away should work.”

  
She left and he was cold. Numbly, he set the device down in front of him as instructed and pressed the button, watching as it flickered to life. The room was doused in a soft blue. That was Tony’s color, Peter thought distantly. Tony, who was right in front of him. He looked tired. His eyes almost matched his own and his clothes looked just as worn as Pepper’s.

  
“Hey, kid.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“If you’re seeing this, I’ve saved the world. We won. If you’re seeing this… you probably feel like you lost. I know.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“I did it for you. We lost, and I was so ready to accept fate as it came and move on. I was tired and I had lost- we had _all_ lost.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“I had lost myself, too, you know. We lost the battle. We lost the war. We lost everybody… I lost you. And, in the midst of it all, I lost myself. But you found me, you know.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“You brought me back. I saw you and I realized that the old me would have never just… sat back and lost. I’m a problem-solver, I’m a fixer. And I needed to fix things.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“If you’re seeing this, you probably are doing what I did, in the beginning. Work until it’s impossible to do anything but. Ignore the world, isolate yourself, work yourself half to death. I was lucky, you know, to have somebody like Rhodey. I’m really hoping Ned can be that for you.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“I lost Pepper in all of that. Thank God for that. It was a real wake-up call. I owe her everything and I never deserved her. Peter… this is your wake-up call.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“If you’re at this point, where you’re seeing this, you need a wake-up call. This is it.” Tony paused. “There’s a whole world waiting for you. They’re holding their breaths. They’ve moved on from me. Iron Man is over. He’s gone. They don’t need me. They need _you_.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“You and Morgan should spend some time together, you know. You’d get along. She’s smart, like you, and sharp as a whip. She’s got nerves of steel and a tongue of poison. You’d do her some good.” Don’t think about Tony.

  
“I know it’s a lot of pressure, having so many people relying on you. Feeling like the universe waits on bended knee for you. I know it’s difficult.” Tony paused again, sighing. “You need them, too. You need Ned. You need Aunt May. You need Pepper, you need Happy, you need Morgan. And that’s okay. You’re allowed to need people. You’re allowed to lean on a shoulder. So lean on one. Or two, or three. You can’t do it alone, and neither can I or anybody else in the world. Nobody expects you to, either.” Peter felt the pause.

  
“I know it’s hard. If anyone can do it, it’s you. So get out there. Save the world a few times. Help a cat out of a tree. Tinker with some invention made by the six-year-old daughter of a multi-millionaire superhero philanthropist. Live a life worth remembering.” Peter didn’t dare move.

  
“I love you.” The room flickered to darkness, the only light coming from the window.

  
“Peter?” A soft knock, and Pepper entered, turning on a lamp on the dresser. She approached slowly, squatting in front of him where Tony had just been. She reached up a hesitant hand, placing it on his cheek and wiping away a tear with her thumb. She had changed out of her wrinkled pencil skirt and blouse into some sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Peter… it’s okay to feel like this. You shouldn’t isolate yourself. This… this is when you need your family the most. Don’t push us all away. Your Aunt May, Ned, Morgan, Happy, me… we’re all here to support you and help you.” Peter sniffed, feeling very far away from everything happening. Pepper stood and pulled his head to her stomach, holding him. He wrapped his arms around her thighs and pressed the side of his face into her stomach and felt her anchor his soul back into his body, grounding him.

  
“You can stay the night, if you’d like.” She murmured. He nodded. “I’ll text your Aunt May. Get some rest, Peter.”

  
He felt her pull away and tuck him into bed and heard her turn off the lamp and pull the door shut softly. He slept.


End file.
